Khieu Samphan

Khieu Samphan (27 July 1931-) was President of Democratic Kampuchea from 11 April 1976 to 7 January 1979, succeeding Norodom Sihanouk and ruling until the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

Biography
Khieu Samphan was born on 27 July 1931 in Svay Rieng Province, Cambodia, the son of a judge in French Indochina. In the 1950s, he studied at the University of Montpellier and joined a group of revolutionary Khmer students, and he returned to Cambodia in 1959 with a doctorate. He joined the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian Civil War, and he led the leftist faction against Lon Nol alongside Norodom Sihanouk, and his radical leftism led to him being expelled from the main branch of the party. From 1976 to 1979 he was President of the Central Presidium of Democratic Kampuchea, and when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and deposed the Khmer Rouge, he led Khmer Rouge guerrillas. In 1985, he became the new leader of the Khmer Rouge after Pol Pot resigned, allegedly due to "asthma", and he held this post until 1998. In December, Samphan and Nuon Chea surrendered to the government of Hun Sen, and in April 2008 he was tried for war crimes. On 7 August 2014, Samphan and Nuon Chea both received life sentences for their roles in the Cambodian Genocide.